Of Mechs and Men
by MrJizg
Summary: G1. In order to gain some leverage over the Autobots, the Decepticons kidnap Bumblebee. Unfortunately, it seems that the Autobots don't actually want the yellow twit back. They're more preoccupied trying to find ways to pay their massive electricity bill
1. Insert Typical Human Name Here

**Of Mechs and**** Men**

_AN: One warning: Never ever, under any circumstances take this fic seriously. Ever. _

**Chapter One:**** Insert Typical Human Name Here**

"Oh yeah, that's a wicked disguise you've got on there, Mr Wave," Starscream said. His ruby-like optics darted up and down the blue mech's frame as he attempted to hold back fits of laughter. For, Soundwave had attempted to disguise himself by putting on a fake moustache, a large pair of lens-less spectacles, and a giant fake human-like nose. Other than that, well, he really just looked like Soundwave in a silly getup. And Starscream was taking immense pleasure in this, of course.

Megatron, supreme lord of the Decepticons, rolled his optics and growled menacingly.

"Silence, Screamer, or I'll send you to the scrapheap."

"Oh you always say that but you never do it," Starscream retorted with a smirk. "I'm too pretty."

"_Slag him to the pit, he's right…"_ Megatron thought.

"Disguise; perfect. Autobots; morons," Soundwave pointed out in his monotone voice.

"He has a point actually," Starscream said. The Air Commander sighed and leaned on the conference desk, placing his chin in his hands. "So, how are you going to lure the little yellow Autobot out of the base?" he asked.

"Your suggestion from earlier," Soundwave replied.

"Ah, good. He'll fall for it, I'm sure. Like you said; he's an idiot," Starscream said, his ego expanding to the size of a small moon.

"And what if he _doesn't_ fall for it?" Megatron asked.

"He will," Starscream said.

"If he doesn't I'll-"

"Send me to the scrapheap, I know, I know," Starscream droned, waving his hand and rolling his optics.

Soundwave turned to leave for his mission, prepared to leave the two Decepticons to squabble as they always did.

"Oh wait, Soundwave!" Starscream called.

"Yes?" Soundwave asked. He turned back to face the red seeker, who jogged to catch up with him as Megatron stalked out of the room muttering about "_the good old days back on Cybertron_".

"One more thing before you leave…" Starscream muttered. He reached into his subspace and pulled out a small spy camera.

"Shall I plant a camera in the Autobots' base?" Soundwave asked.

"No, I want to take a picture of you looking like this or TC and 'Warp'll never believe me!" Starscream said. He held up the camera and took a photo before turning on his heel and leaving.

Soundwave sighed and shook his head.

---

Bumblebee skipped happily through The Ark, humming a cheerful tune. His bright blue optics glowed with joy as he turned a corner into the command centre, where Ratchet was yelling at Wheeljack again.

"It's not _my_ fault it blew up!" Wheeljack cried as Ratchet held a scalpel to his face.

"Yes it is! It's always your fault! Everything is _your fault_!" Ratchet growled.

Bumblebee ignored their routine argument and carried on in his happy skipping. He passed Skyfire on his way out of the base. The large mech was sitting by a window and writing on a datapad. As he passed, Bumblebee caught Skyfire whispering to himself as he wrote;

"My love for you is never-ending, my perfect seeker. Oh, how I wish you would throw down your Decepticon insignia and fly away with me…"

Bumblebee stopped and watched as Sunstreaker and Sideswipe creeped up behind Skyfire, peeked at what he had written and grabbed the datapad from his hands.

"Daw, Sky's writing _poetry_ again!" Sunstreaker yelled, running as the larger 'bot attempted to grab the pad out of his hands.

"Shut up! You don't understand! None of you _understand_!" Skyfire cried.

"_Just a normal day in the Autobot base…"_ Bumblebee thought to himself as he began skipping again.

"I'm gonna tell Optimuuuuussss!" Sideswipe cooed to Skyfire as Bumblebee rounded a corner.

Ironhide ran past, shooting wildly at nothing in particular.

"Stupid holograms! I know you're hiding up there somewhere! Come out and fight like real warriors!" the red 'bot screamed. Hound came from around the corner, calling out to the deranged Autobot.

"I didn't even _use_ any holograms! What the frag is _wrong_ with you?"

Bumblebee shrugged and headed for The Ark's entrance, intending to go and skip around outside amongst the flowers and the butterflies and do other retarded things like that. Because he's Bumblebee.

As the doors slid open, Bumblebee saw the rolling valleys, filled with luscious green grass. Little bunny rabbits bounced happily through the fields, their peculiar ears twitching, birds soared through the skies, butterflies fluttered through the flowerbeds, and a tall, blue _thing_ with a moustache, a pair of glasses and a very odd nose was standing next to a tree and gesturing to him.

Bumblebee looked at the thing. It looked like a mech, but mechs didn't have moustaches and noses like that. And mechs didn't need to wear glasses.

"_Wait a second…"_ Bumblebee thought as his optics strayed to the "mech's" hand. His blue optics sparkled like gems as he saw what the "mech" was holding.

"Haribo!" Bumblebee shrieked. He jumped up and down and clapped his hands joyously. "Haribo! Haribo! Optimus never lets me have Haribo! Can I have some Haribo, Mister?" he asked.

The stranger nodded and held the brightly coloured bag of sweets up. Bumblebee rushed over and jammed some cola bottles and heart sweets into his mouth. He grinned.

"Thanks, Mister!" he chirped.

Then he noticed that he had been picked up and placed over the stranger's shoulder. _Then_, he noticed that he was being carried away from The Ark. THEN he thought that something _might_ just be fishy about this situation.

"Hey, Mister, where are you taking me?" Bumblebee asked.

"Autobot; silent. Eat delicious typical human sweets," the stranger said.

"You sound kind of familiar…" Bumblebee muttered. He squinted as his tiny CPU searched his memory banks.

"We have never met before. I do not know what you are talking about. My name is Insert Typical Human Name Here. I am a typical human. There is nothing strange about me. I am a typical human."

"Oh, okay!" Bumblebee said. He tipped the rest of the Haribo into his mouth and watched the scenery roll past.

After a while, Bumblebee found himself being carried to a large body of water.

"That looks a bit like where the Decepticons' base is!" he pointed out happily.

"It is not the Decepticons' base. You are mistaken. It is a typical human house. For I am Insert Typical Human Name Here, a typical human, and I live in a typical human house, like all typical humans do."

"Wow, and I thought humans couldn't breath underwater!" Bumblebee said. "Are there any more sweets in your typical human house, Insert Typical Human Name Here?"

"Affirmative."

"Yaaaaayyyyy!"


	2. Oh, Wheeljack, Not Again

**Of Mechs and Men**

**Chapter Two: ****Oh, Wheeljack… Not Again**

Soundwave threw Bumblebee down to the floor of the landing bay. The stupid creature merely crossed his legs and gazed up at Soundwave with an ignorant smile spread across his face.

"You were only gone ten minutes," Megatron said. He seemed surprised, quirking a black optic ridge upwards as he looked away from the game of "twister" (A very strange human game) that Astrotrain, Skywarp and Thundercracker were playing.

"Well of course," Starscream drawled as he came in. "I told you this Autobot was a moron."

Bumblebee smiled up at Starscream and Megatron.

"Is this your family, Insert Typical Human Name Here?" he asked, pointing at Starscream and Megatron. The warlord growled.

A groan escaped Starscream's vocal processor and he brought a hand up to clap over his forehead.

"But I didn't think he'd be _that_ stupid," he sighed.

--_Three Weeks Later_--

Ratchet's earth-shattering cry of "WHEELJAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!" shook the very core of the Ark as it pierced the audio sensors of those inside.

Those within the command centre were treated to the spectacular sight of the masked mechanic tearing into the room, falling flat on his face, scrambling to his feet, then ducking for cover behind Teletraan-1 as a wrench sailed through the air.

The wrench narrowly missed Wheeljack, instead thwacking into the helm of a rather disorientated Jazz. The saboteur stared dumbly around the room, rubbing the back of his head where he'd been hit.

Wheeljack peeked out from behind the large computer console just as Ratchet made his entrance, an ocean of rage washing through the room along with him. His cold blue optics found the mechanic and the old mech snarled.

"Wheeljack! Come here now!" the medic shouted, brandishing what appeared to be a giant rolled up piece of paper.

The other Autobots present merely glanced in amused silence between Ratchet and Wheeljack. The medic trying to kill the mechanic was an almost daily event in the Ark, so they weren't too fussed. Besides, Ratchet never hurt Wheeljack all that much, so it was all good.

"Someone help!" Wheeljack squeaked when Ratchet began to advance towards him like a towering demon.

Prowl, the only one who was not completely amused by the events unfolding because he was, as the twins put it, "a stuck-up wanker", yanked Ratchet backwards.

"What's going on here?" he demanded with a stern frown plastered to his face.

"He's tryin' to kill me!" Wheeljack yelped from behind Teletraan-1.

"Yes, well, that's not entirely unheard of around here," Prowl sighed.

"This idiot has crossed the fragging line, Prowl!"

"I told you, I had to do it!"

"What did he do?" Prowl asked with an exacerbated sigh.

"Look!" Ratchet said. He thrust the giant piece of paper into the tactician's hands and folded his arms across his chest.

Prowl unrolled the large piece of paper and the entire room fell into utter silence as his blue optics scanned it. Finally, his optic ridges creased and he turned to look at Wheeljack, who was still cowering behind Teletraan-1.

"What is this?" Prowl demanded, voice filled with anger.

"It's… an electricity bill…" Wheeljack murmured, the fins on the side of his head only flickering dully.

"For over three _million_ dollars?" Prowl questioned, cocking an optic ridge.

"Well, we use quite a lot of power," the mechanic replied.

"But we're not connected to the city's power supply. We have our own generators," Prowl said.

"Well, uh…" Wheeljack mumbled. "Actually, the generators haven't worked since the Ark crashed. I couldn't get them to work again, so…"

"So he pretty much plugged our ship's giant plug into the city's giant plug socket. And now we've been draining it of power for months!" Ratchet butted in.

"And you didn't feel the need to tell anyone about this?" Prowl growled at Wheeljack. "We owe the humans money that we don't have!"

"Uh, well, I didn't really think about that," Wheeljack mumbled.

A long, awkward silence dragged out for around a million years. Ratchet was seething, glaring at Wheeljack with a lust for destruction in his flaring blue optics, while the mechanic still peeked cautiously over Teletraan-1, his gaze set on Prowl. The second in command studied the electricity bill several more times before sighing.

"Well, what are we going to do about this? We can't very well just give back electricity," Prowl said, glaring at Wheeljack as if he were hoping that the mechanic would burst into flames.

"Uh, we could pay it?" Wheeljack squeaked quietly.

"What part of '_we don't have any money'_ don't you understand?" Ratchet snapped. "I doubt they'll be accepting Cybertronian credits."

"But we could get human currency!" Wheeljack said. His fins flashed a slightly brighter, more confident blue this time.

"_How_?" Prowl asked, waving his hands about in obvious frustration.

"Um… We could get jobs?" Wheeljack suggested meekly. However, a wrench smashed into the side of his head, shutting him up while Ratchet took his turn to speak.

"We should talk to Spike and Sparkplug," he said. "And I'm gonna need some more wrenches."

Prowl nodded in agreement. "Bumblebee? Do you know where Spike is?" he asked, still studying the electricity bill.

When no reply came, the police car Transformer looked up and gazed around the control room. Every Autobot in the Ark had been drawn there by the prospect of being able to watch Ratchet beat the slag out of Wheeljack again.

"Bumblebee?" Prowl asked again. Several of the surrounding 'bots shrugged and shook their heads. "Oh well, I'm sure someone will find him at some point," Prowl said, walking towards Prime's office.


End file.
